Jerome Powell Is Still Puzzling Over the Strength of the U.S. Economy
We are now more than three and a half years out from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, which upended the global economy, and economists and policymakers are still surprised by the strength of the economic rebound in the United States. Most recently, both hiring and retail spending have picked up. A couple of weeks ago, the Labor Department announced that employers created three hundred and thirty-six thousand jobs last month. Earlier this week, the Census Bureau said retail sales rose by 0.7 per cent in September, on a seasonally adjusted basis, more than twice as fast as economists were expecting.More hiring and consumer spending translate into more output. According to the Atlanta Federal Reserve’s GDPNow estimate, G.D.P. expanded at an annual rate of 5.6 per cent in the third quarter...